Black Magic
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: The Black family has always been notable for its magical talents. Written for Writing Challenge #42 on xoxLewrahxox's Bellatrix Lestrange forum. Bellatrix, Andromeda, Narcissa
1. Bellatrix

Author's Notes: Written for meira16's First Magic challenge on xoxLewrahxox's Bellatrix Lestrange: The Dark Lord's Most Faithful forum.

)O(

The parlour of Black Manor was silent.

Druella was working on a piece of embroidery, Cygnus reading the newspaper, and Bellatrix was sitting on the couch, playing quietly Narcissa. The baby grabbed hard onto Bellatrix's finger, her tiny nails digging into the flesh, and Bellatrix let out a sharp gasp, wrenching her hand back.

Druella looked up, and saw only Bellatrix drawing her hand back, glaring down at her baby sister.

"Bellatrix Black!" Druella cried out sharply, "don't you _dare_ hit your sister!"

Bellatrix whipped around to look at her mother. "I didn't!"

"You were going to."

"I was not!"

Baby Narcissa made an angelic cooing noise, and Bellatrix glared at her.

"We have spoken to you about how you behave towards your sister!" Cygnus said, folding his newspaper. "If you were going to hit her–"

"I wasn't!"

"–then that is simply crossing a line–"

"Aren't you _listening_ to me?" Bellatrix asked, her voice rising to a shriek. "I wasn't going to hit Cissy! I wasn't!"

"Do not talk back to your parents!" Cygnus thundered. "Go to your room, Bellatrix Black!"

Bellatrix's eyes narrowed into slits and her fists clenched. She practically swelled with anger.

The chandelier exploded.

Pieces of sharp glass and crystal rained down, and Druella shrieked, covering her head. Cygnus ducked as well, but Bellatrix sat perfectly still, only moving slightly to shield Narcissa's face from the shards that fell around them.

At last, once he was sure that the glass and crystal had finished falling, Cygnus raised his head and stared at his eldest daughter with something like fear. Children should not be able to do things like that… not in anger, especially – it was dangerous…

Bellatrix met his eyes.

She smiled.


	2. Andromeda

Cygnus held his favourite daughter's hand tightly as they walked through Muggle London. He had not wanted to take her here, but they had run out of floo powder and he didn't fancy trying to apparate into a crowded pub with a squirming five-year-old. Andromeda held onto her father's hand, looking around curiously as she was led through the streets.

"Were are we, Daddy?"

"London," he told her shortly, craning his neck to look for the Leaky Cauldron.

Andromeda seemed satisfied with that answer, and she stood by her father's side, humming softly. A leaf from a scrawny tree fluttered down past her face, and she frowned as it came unpleasantly close to her eye.

There was a pop, and she jumped a little as it transformed before her eyes from a leaf to a butterfly. Her jaw dropped. "Daddy!"

"What is it, Andromeda?" he asked a little impatiently.

"Look, Daddy!" She pointed at the insect excitedly as it fluttered around her head. "It was a leaf- and then it was a butterfly! It turned into a butterfly!"

Cygnus's face paled. "You mean- you _turned it into a butterfly_?"

She nodded, a bit uncertain now, thrown off by her father's tone.

He bent down so he was nose to nose with her, and Andromeda shrunk back from him in fear.

"We are in a _Muggle_ place! Do not _ever_ let Muggles see you doing magic," he hissed.

"Why not?" she asked quietly.

"Because they are not worthy of seeing magic," he told her. "They are inferior to us, and they should not be allowed to have anything to do with us, is that clear?"

Andromeda nodded, but in the back of her mind, she was wondering just how inferior they could really be.


	3. Narcissa

Narcissa lay in her cradle, sucking on her fingers and looking around with wide-eyed curiosity at the whole of the Black family, which was crowded around her, cooing over the new baby. The only Blacks who weren't crowding around her cradle, eagerly admiring the new addition to the family tree, were Bellatrix and Andromeda, who were both banished to the far side of the room so they didn't take any attention away from their baby sister.

Druella seemed infinitely pleased with her new daughter. She glowed with every compliment given, and was constantly stroking the tiny creature's oddly pale hair, as though it were the most precious thing in the world. Cygnus, by her side, looked more than a little bored with the whole event, and he seemed, to Andromeda and Bellatrix at least, to be trying his best to look anywhere but at the baby herself.

"Isn't she just the loveliest thing?" Aunt Walburga sang in a horrible baby voice as she leaned over the cradle. "You must be so proud to finally be having such a pretty daughter."

Bellatrix and Andromeda exchanged disgusted glances.

"Thank you, darling," said Druella, stroking Narcissa's forehead and looking proud. Cygnus stood at his wife's side, his smile a tiny bit forced.

Aunt Walburga leaned down over the baby, and then stood up quickly with a shriek.

"What's wrong?" asked Druella.

As if in answer, baby Narcissa let out a little giggle and waved her hand through the air. A little shower of ice blue sparks popped from her fingers, like a tiny display of fireworks, and she giggled again.

Druella let out a tiny gasp, and swelled with pride. "Look at my baby!" she squealed, in almost as gratingly childish a voice as Narcissa's own. "Barely a month old and already doing magic!" She all but clapped her hands together in glee. "She's going to be a great witch, I can feel it!"

"Not bloody likely," Bellatrix whispered in Andromeda's ear.


End file.
